Southwest Florida Pinball Avenue

Welcome to Southwest Florida Pinball Avenue, a blog set up to chart and critique pinball machines in Southwest Florida - in the cities of Bonita Springs, Naples, Estero, Fort Myers, Fort Myers Beach, Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres. And Now for Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda areas. If you know of a pinball machine in the area just post or email the location, make, model, theme, condition and anything else you feel is relevant.

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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Awesome. We might actually have a place to play pinball in the wild again.

Zoomers was a go-cart, miniature golf, arcade family fun center that was suppose to open several years but failed to be completed so close to being finished. The original owner pour in over 15million to begin this endeavour only to have come to a halt during 2007.

The building and 16 acres has been sitting for all those years until it was bought at auction last year. The current owner bought with the goal to finish the amusement park and they did just that. The grand opening is June 15th.

I have yet to find out if they will have any pinball machines on site, but I did ask the question on their facebook site. You can join me here to help them understand, if they don't already, that pinball machine is as important to an arcade and family fun as much as a video machine. There facebook site is: http://www.facebook.com/#!/ZoomersAmusementPark

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

I can’t wait to get back to Pittsburgh's PAPA and play some pinball. I can’t wait hang out with all the pinhead and friends there.

I heard that Jason, Donny, Brian are heading up, so that will be great to have a chance to talk and watch them play, especial Donny since he seems to get stuck on the other side of these FL pinball tournaments. I am looking forward to playing in the tournament also, the set-up at Pinburgh seems relaxed….. before getting into the trenches of the final rounds. I just hope I have the energy to maintain a good level of play through the rounds. Three days of solid pinball playing. Lol How do you practice for that? Watching and playing, thinking and strategizing, talking and writing, laughing and hopefully not crying about pinball. It is going to be awesome time.

The fantastic fact about the PAPA place is that they have a great collection of pinball machines that are in really nice shape and well maintained that can be played away from the tournaments (as time allows before, after or in-between competition playing). They have such a diverse line-up of pins from EM, SS to the latest Sterns and so many that you can’t play them all.

Last time I was there, I had to come up with a plan for my game choosing. I was trying to find games to put my token that caught my attention because they were:1) Pinball machines I never played before2) Pins that were rare to find3) Dirty or broken pins, that I found in the past and might have had a dis-like for, to try to get a new opinion4) Pins that I enjoyed to play like AFM (I just can’t walk pass those?!)5) Lastly, Pins that was in the tournament line-up that I felt I needed to learn and practice on.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

A several people had asked more questions about the parts that can be found on the Spider-man pinball machine, so I decided to record a few more videos describing some additional parts that make up a average pinball machine as the work progressed. These are typical parts or mechanics that make pinball what it is today.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The Spider-man pinball machine is starting to shape up. We cleaned and scrubed all the nuts and bolts, ramps, plastics and the playfield. We put on three coat wax and bluffed between each coat and what a glossy shine we have now. It is a good feeling inside knowing that we can give new life back to this pinball machine.

The next step is to start bolting the parts and assemblies back to the top of the playfield and that is the subject of my video here.

For more information on our Project Pinball and how you can help, you can visit us at Project Pinball on Facebook

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Location: The Children's Hospital Fourth FloorOn-site damage assessment: Filthy, broken and unplayable. Can not repair at location due to sterile environment.

Final note: No Problem!

We have been working to complete the Spider-man for its triumphed return to the Chrissy Brown Oncology and Hematology Unit at the Children's Hospital. We have set the date for this coming Saturday the 10th of December. I have been burning the midnight oil all week making great progress but having less time to post the videos that I made along the way. So here they are.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

While I was at the IAAPPA Expo I had a chance to talk to a lot of good people that are very interested in donating parts and other items for our Project Pinball. Which is great and it will help me get this Spider-man back up and running for the kids.

The Southern Pinball Festival was a wonderful success for getting the word out about our facebook, YouTube and blogging pages and our great charity. We had donation buckets located around the event hall that were being filled by the warm and kind pinball people from all over the globe.

I filmed additional footage of the teardown process. The first video is showing the beginning of the playfield being stripped down.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Jimmy Schneeberger was a member of the Webelos Den 1, Pack 12 of Collier County and was recently awarded with the Arrow of Light Award ­ the highest award cub scouts can earn. He attended Laurel Oak Elementary School where he was on the honor roll. He most recently attended Corkscrew Elementary School where he was a member of the peer mediation group. Jimmy Schneeberger was among the first winners of the Collier County "Do the Right Thing" award.

This is why we do it.

My wife found out there was a broken Spidermanpinball machine in the oncology department of the Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida. It was a memorial gift, donated to the hospital in the name of Jimmy Schneeberger .

We felt it was just wrong to have a great gift and outlet for the kids sit idle because it needed our TLC.

We are working on the Spider-man right now and we are going to fix it in honor of Jimmy and his Family and for all kids that are undergoing treatment in the hospital.

The Southern Pinball Festival owners heard about our Florida charity drive to save Jimmy's Spider-manpinball machine for the Children's Hospital and couldn't stand idle without lending us a helping hand.

The Southern Pinball Festival is sharing our passion and it shows from their huge support. Thank you. They featured an article about our cause on their front home page of the SPF. They help with the arrangements for us to publicize the Project Pinball at their three day event.

We are going to have donations buckets on-site so if you spot one, please help us with a warm gift to the kids of the Chrissy Brown Oncology and Hematology Unit. Also I will be there for all three days supporting the efforts of SPFs' wonderful event, come and say "Hello". I would love to talk to you.